Customer Reviews

Elvgren: His Life & Art

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(0)
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This fabulous volume is surely the most comprehensive collection of Gil Elvgren's work ever assembled in book form. It should go far to establish Elvgren, along with Petty and Vargas, as a master of the American pin-up.

The biographical information is complete and well written including Elvgren's personal, commercial and artistic endeavors. The information on his associations with other pin-up artists of the time is especially interesting.

The importance of Elvgren's models is emphasized, although he painted from photos rather than the live model. In many cases the model's photo and finished painting are side by side showing Elvgren's ability to capture form and expression.

The book includes about 200 of Elvgren's paintings in vibrant full color and covers his advertising work for Coca-Cola and others as well as his famous calendar pin-ups. It is a great source for the pin-up fan, or art historian.

I bought this book expecting to see lots of those great Elvgren paintings at a reasonable size. This book however seems to focus more on the models that Elvgren uses for reference rather than the actual paintings. The book is nice but not exactly what i was looking for.

This is a really beautiful book, with nice photos of Elvgren's work and some of his model shots. I was impressed at the layout and the see through tissue paper like illustration designs on some of the chapter headings. But I was very disappointed about a number of things in this book.

Though there are many great pictures of models and many names are listed in the text, the models are not identified in their photos.Worse than this, it seems that this book, co-written by Elvgren's son, Drake Elvgren, has a religious right spin to it which is strange for a number of reasons.

There are many references to Elvgren's "Shame" at his pinup art. Drake (and Collins?) write "If Janet (Elvgren's wife) was bothered by her husband's mildly sinful way of making a living, it created few if any ripples in their Rockwellesque family life." The book also talks about how Elvgren expressed "regret at not doing fine art".

The book also makes a point at talking about how Elvgren became converted at the end of his life to Christianity and this surely seems to have influenced him in his pinup art and life, or so Drake would have us believe.

The overall emphasis is that Elvgren was never alone with his models (being so would have been a sin), that he was a perfect father (except for his "lapses" when he didn't attend some of his kids schooling events), only drank a little (even though he was irritated that when his wife became a Christian she would only drink iced teas at parties or that he seems to have had a reputation as being a "man's man" and a good drinker), and was highly conservative (even though he painted pinup).

The duo also seem to buy into the whole lowbrow/highbrow hierchy that "The Great American Pin-Up" Book (the bible on the genre) tries so hard to dispel. The duo write aboutthe distinction between Elvgren's paintings and Art Frahm's series of pinup paintings which feature women losing their underpants in a series of embarrassing circumstances and how Elvgren would never have "sunk so low" to do such "caricature like paintings".

I am sure Elvgren was a classy and decent man, and a man of his era (so he is excused to a degree for a number of the now non-PC-like paintings he did) but how is it not a caricature when Elvgren typically painted woman in lingerie and high heels doing things that they would be idiotic doing in such clothes. For example, why would a woman be bent over a flaming grill with hardly nothing on? Or why would a obviously grown women in heels and lingerie again, who is crouching on a chair, be scared of a wind-up crocodile toy?? Are women so stupid that when they paint the floor, they paint themselves into a corner? Well, if you are an Elvgren painting, it seems so. But that is what pin-up artists of their day did. They did caricatures. Women were seen as child-like (needing men to take care of them, "of course") and the pinup genre in general is for men to look at them in all their (my) glorious male gaze.

The fact is that caricatures of women are the basis of pin-ups. Shameful? Why yes. Of course, but that was another time and place. The problem with this book is that the authors try to put Elvgren apart from the rest of the pack (maybe because of Drake's christian bent?) even goes on to say how Elvgren would often change the models to by saying he would not "pu himself" so lowly as to do caricatures like artists like Frahm. However, the book also discusses how Elvgren himself elongated his models torsos, shrank their noses, and put 15 year old faces on adult women bodies. Why set apart Elvgren from Frahm by saying one did caricatures and one did not. Why not just say Elvgren was the best at these caricatures and did them classier?

I love Elvgren art. He was a wonderful artist and the best pinup artist of his time. I wish the book would have been more about the art itself and based in more facts of Elvgren's life instead of an obviously skewed retelling by a born again son. I respect Collins truly hope in his next book he won't allow his common sense to fail him again when co-authoring a book with a family member of the subject. I wonder how different this book would have been if he had done this alone? Drake's personal memories of his father could have been kept in without Drake's obvious biases working to "save' his father from what I am sure Drake must see as some sort of minor sin by hios father (thankfully saved by Elvgren's getting reborn 6 months before dying-as the book makes sure to point out!). Drake's characterization of his father is almost nauseating.

Excellent presentation of the greatest pinup artist of all time

I don't want to be too nasty about this book beacause it does have more information than the other Elvgren books. The book also provided some of the paintings Elvgren did for Coca Cola which I had not seen. However, I agree with the reviewer that stated the captions were inane. Every model was described as "beautiful" or "stunning" or some other compliment when they clearly weren't. Also, all the books say that Elvgren only used really young models and some of the pics clearly show older women with wrinkles! And most importantly, why wasn't the intriguing and disturbing Harem/Still Life/Bowl of Fruit discussed? This painting is clearly VERY different than the pin ups that he did. The main reason I bought this book was to see if there was an explication of this painting and it wasn't there. Was it a commissioned painting? Did he paint it for fun? Was it a reference to a book? It certainly looks like it could be an illustration from a novel. If anyone has any information about this painting please email me at wilsonlgw@yahoo.com
I hope someone writes a biography of Elvgren without his son involved. He made a point to say he was a born again Christian and attended an Assembly of God church, which is all very nice, but not very relevant to Elvgren's art.

The book is a wonderful presentation of Gil Elvgren pin up paintings with some photos of the original models posing. This is a delightful reminiscence on one of the masters of the female form. Elvgren's eye is to be envied.

As an artist and long-time admirer of Gillette Elvgren's illustrations and pinups, I was thrilled to discover this book because until recently, there has been so little published about him. It's interesting to see the photographs he worked from alongside the paintings. It's very annoying, however, that so many of the reference photos are "flopped" (turned in the opposite direction from the painting). Why they did this makes no sense, because you can't compare them. Also, the captions are centered rather than justified. The book gives the impression that amateurs put it together. It doesn't do justice to the great illustrations that Elvgren produced.

As an artist and long-time admirer of Gillette Elvgren's illustrations and pinups, I was thrilled to discover this book because until recently, there has been so little published about him. It's interesting to see the photographs he worked from alongside the paintings he executed from them. It's very annoying, however, that so many of the reference photos are "flopped" (turned in the opposite direction from the painting). Why they did this makes no sense, because you can't compare them. Also, the captions are centered rather than justified. The book gives the impression that amateurs put it together. It doesn't do justice to the great illustrations that Elvgren produced.

This is a great book for the Elvgren enthusiast as well as a person discovering Elvgren's work for the first time. The only way I could see to make it better would be to include more of his work. I thought the use of overlays was particularly effective in illustrating how Mr. Elvgren used models for his work. If someone has even a casual interest in Pin-Up art check this book out.

As an artist and long-time admirer of Gillette Elvgren's illustrations and pinups, I was thrilled to discover this book because until recently, there has been so little published about him. It's interesting to see the photographs he worked from alongside the paintings. It's very annoying, however, that so many of the reference photos are "flopped" (turned in the opposite direction from the painting). Why they did this makes no sense, because you can't compare them. Also, the captions are centered rather than justified. The book gives the impression that amateurs put it together. It doesn't do justice to the great illustrations that Elvgren produced.